


Time Is My Vessel

by thegrumblingirl



Series: The Stars, the Moon, They Have All Been Blown Out [2]
Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Bad Dreams, M/M, Slash, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-04
Updated: 2012-08-04
Packaged: 2017-11-11 10:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follow-up to 2 o'clock. Sam and Gene try to make their life together work - one morning can change everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Is My Vessel

"If time is my vessel, then learning to love might be my way back to sea," Sam sang under his breath while making coffee in his rickety kitchen. He remembered loving this song in 2006, but he'd never quite understood its significance until now. For him, a man who'd once believed he might be a lunatic, or a coma patient, or a time traveller, stuck somewhere out of his time, and who had only recently allowed emotions and gut instinct back into his life, this one line encompassed everything. The wonder he felt at what he had with Gene, and the trepidation that had conflicted with it whenever he'd thought of going back to "the real world," and the gratitude that raged within him when he realized he'd been right. He'd been right to let Gene in, to give in to his feelings for the other man, because he'd believed they would make him a better man in 2006—and they had made him a better man. But they'd been of no use to him there, he didn't want to live there anymore, in a world without Gene. So he'd jumped, back into 1974. Before all of that, at the beginning of their relationship, he hadn't fully accepted it as real, yet had willed it to be just so that he could stop fearing that Gene's skin might vanish from underneath his fingertips without warning one night. Now, he knew that he was dead but felt more alive than he'd ever had. He didn't know  _what_  this world was, but there was nowhere else he wanted to be, nowhere else he could have felt safer.

He'd just completed that thought when he felt Gene come up behind him, shuffling his feet sleepily, and press a kiss to Sam's ear before going on to the bathroom without saying a word.  _Grumpyface_ , Sam thought affectionately. This was the third night in a row Gene had spent at his place, and he couldn't help but mumble, "clingy…" into his mug at the thought. He knew that Gene would probably opt for sleeping at his own home for the next few nights, maybe until the weekend, just to show a modicum of decency and keep up the facade, but it wasn't as if the DCI's wife actually cared (or spent all those nights alone, in fact). Of course, she didn't know that Sam and the guv were lovers, but when he called to say he wouldn't make it home, it was a given he'd either kip in his office or on Sam's sofa, although he rarely bothered to call these days. What exactly he did on Sam's sofa didn't have to interest anybody.

Sometimes, Sam wondered how good they were at hiding it. Annie knew, of course, she'd been his confidante ever since, but he couldn't resist watching the others at the station watching  _them_. They were careful, certainly, but not overly so—they had always been, perhaps unconsciously, touching a lot, just light, random touches, those that could be noticed but written off as accidents: when they handed each other reports, when they walked along the corridors close to each other. And, of course, there was Gene's way of making a point: slamming Sam into any available hard surface. Unsurprisingly, ever since they'd gotten together, he seemed to enjoy it even more; and they didn't do anything to avoid the little things. They did, however, wonder whether anyone would ever notice how their voices had become just the slightest bit softer even as they insulted each other as they'd always done. And how much fun they had while doing exactly that—the "You great soft, sissy, girly, nancy, French bender, Man United-supporting _poof_!" had been the best and most creative yet.

It wasn't easy, of course, it never was, the thing with the cocaine in the early days and then—Hyde. Sam wiped his face with his free hand as he thought of what he'd nearly done. What he  _had_  done, dammit. He couldn't have explained his entire reasoning to Gene without earning himself a few more punches to the face and an even longer break from their relationship, but he truly had believed that this world wasn't real, that he wouldn't hurt anyone by leaving, that it was just the barrier his comatose mind had built for him to break through in order to make the effort to regain consciousness. How wrong he'd been. But he couldn't sell that to Gene, so he'd just rolled with the punches—literally—and explained and made up for it as best he could. In the end, Gene had forgiven him, the rest of the team had followed, and a few weeks after that, the guv had crushed him against the filing cabinet in his office with relish and kissed him senseless; thus wordlessly announcing to Sam that they were "back on." Sam knew he still had to work to fully regain Gene's trust, but they both knew he was coming around, so Sam just kept calm and carried on.

If anyone had ever been bound to notice, Sam pondered, it would have been in those long weeks during which Gene had basically broken up with him until further notice, and which had had them both suffering horrendously. Sam, for being desperate to make amends and to assure Gene that he did love him, but that there had been something in Hyde rearing its ugly head that he couldn't have gotten away from, and that he was sorry. That he knew where his priorities lay now. Gene had looked at him, green eyes sad and inscrutable, and said, "Yes, you do." (The DCI, for his part, had also been palpably pained by the conflicting feelings within him—knowing he couldn't have forced Sam to come back, but loving him and forgiving him all the same. Loving him although he knew that he shouldn't, because this was his world, and Sam shouldn't be here like this. But he was, and he knew he didn't want to change that,  _ever_ , so he didn't particularly fight himself when it became too much and he didn't want to stay away from his lover any longer. His filing cabinet had done the job nicely.) That had been months ago, and they were together now, and happy; catching murdering scumbags by day and making love by night.

* * *

Although last night had been an exceptional night—not just because the sex had been fantastic, mind you. They'd fallen asleep in a tangle, Sam curled up slightly with his back pressed against Gene's chest just after midnight. Not three hours later, Sam had woken up, shaken out of his slumber by thrashing and mumbling from behind him. He turned around quickly, only to find his DCI in the middle of what seemed to be a nightmare; a sheen of cold sweat on his forehead and his jaws gritted tightly. Sam tried waking him up gently, with only a hand on his shoulder, and murmuring his name, calling to him; but he soon realized that wouldn't do the trick with such persistent dreams, so he took a deep breath and bellowed, "Gene! Wake up!"

And indeed, his partner suddenly snapped awake, staring up at Sam with wide eyes. He blinked a few times, then grabbed Sam's face, quickly but firmly kissed him, then pulled him back down beside him, and settled on the bed to go back to sleep. It all happened so fast, Sam hadn't even opened his mouth to ask.

"Gene. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Sammy boy. Just go back to sleep."

"Don't 'Sammy boy' me when you've just had a nasty nightmare." Sam tightened his hold on Gene's arm that was slung across his waist. "Come on. They'll only get worse if you don't talk about them."

"Can't get any worse than it already was when it happened."

"When what happened?" Sam had an inkling what Gene was talking about, but he wanted him to say it, to face it. Gene's sigh tickled the hairs at the nape of his neck. At length, he spoke.

"It's two years ago now. Reg Cole and the gun, and you kneeling on the floor. At 2 o'clock he wanted to shoot you, and I would have killed him with my bare hands if he had."

Sam turned in Gene's embrace and looked deep into his lover's eyes.

"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

Another shadow passed over Gene's eyes, but Sam couldn't make out why. Again, it was a while before the older man answered.

"I know."

* * *

Sam remembered that far-away look in Gene's eyes and shivered slightly. Sometimes he felt that his partner knew a lot more about something that Sam couldn't decipher than he let on; and Sam wondered whether it was a secret similar to the one he held. Gene chose that moment to emerge from the bathroom, showered and fully clothed. He accepted a steaming mug of coffee from Sam and leant closer to kiss him good morning, smiling lazily against his mouth.

"Still alive, I see," he drawled. Sam knew it was to relieve the slight tension that had been accompanying them since the small hours, and smiled. "Still alive."

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is a little follow-up to my first story, 2 o'clock. Just a few scenes from Sam and Gene's life together, of which this is the first. There might be more if I find the time, exploring Gene's side of, um, secret keeping. This can be read as a stand-alone, but it does subtly refer back to the first, so you might want to read that, too ;)
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing, I get nothing. Thanks to the BBC for letting me borrow them for a bit. The title and the lyrics are nicked from Interpol's 'Public Pervert' from their 2004 album Antics.
> 
> Repost from ff.net.


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